


it's a bright light kind of blur

by whiskeyinthejar



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Crack, M/M, Vegas, glitter and jam, hangovers are a bitch, liam has rude shirts, louis has pined a lot, metaphors suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyinthejar/pseuds/whiskeyinthejar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We dressed in drag and came as brides.” Harry says flatly, and Louis nods, the shades bouncing on his nose.</p><p>“You looked lovely, dear.” Louis acknowledges, petting his thumbs along the backs of Harry’s hands (which Louis doesn't seem to want to let go of any time soon, in case Harry and his dalek wedding ring run off into the glittery horizon).</p><p>-</p><p>(Harry wakes up and he can't remember last night but he's covered in glitter and he thinks he may have accidentally married his best friend).</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a bright light kind of blur

**Author's Note:**

> None of this actually makes any sense and I hope it never happens to anyone in their life because this is serious misfortune.
> 
> I do hope you enjoy it, though, as this is the product of two days' hard work and the outpouring of all the weird from my mind.
> 
> Kudos/comments are the light I live for and I love whoever does.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events should be in no way associated with any person, and I do not profit from or intend to offend.

It’s not often that the entirety of Harry’s brain feels like it’s slowly being consumed by a forest fire, but this morning is one of those times.

This morning is also one of those times wherein Harry is lying on silk sheets (he doesn’t even know anywhere that has silk sheets, he thought that was just a figment of bad literature), and he’s as naked as the day he was born.  
Well, almost. There’s something horrifyingly sticky on either of his cheeks (he’d rather not think about that), and he thinks he’s wearing particularly uncomfortable shoes. In which uncomfortable means _‘Twist and break every singly bone in your foot’._ Lastly, he’s got a layer of glitter or sequins over his body; so, not quite naked. Harry supposes that’s something, at least.

Harry risks cracking open an eyelid, and automatically wishes he hadn’t, because the rushing in of light to his eyes is like dousing them in gasoline before lighting them on fire.

“Well, shit.” He remarks to the room-with-silken-sheets at large.

When he says it, he doesn’t actually expect a reply.

“Jus’ sleep it off, sugarpuff.” Someone says, voice thick with sleep –like they’re only half way to consciousness-, but Harry knows that fucking voice anywhere.

“Louis?” He asks, daring to try making one eyelid a slit and check out the surrounding area.

Perhaps, on reflection, he shouldn’t have done. Louis’s lying on his front next to him, face turned towards Harry, and also devoid of clothes like they’re an unheard of concept. Nevertheless he’s got a lovely plastic tiara tangled into his hair and sloppy, smudged make up across his skin and Harry is fairly sure that he’s wearing a necklace made out of daises and condoms.

Harry didn’t even know you could _get_ daises in Vegas.

The most pressing matter at hand, he thinks, is that he can’t actually remember any of last night. As in, any of it. At all.

“I think I’m gonna puke.” Harry says, but Louis’s returned to his dead to the world sleeping, and Harry has the King of Bad Feelings currently making waves inside his mind, and that is very separate to the need to regurgitate.

Deciding that it would be better not to spoil the bed with anything remotely resembling vomit, Harry steps tentatively off the bed, walking across the room with baby steps and keeping his arms outstretched. Very wobbly baby steps, because it appears that Harry’s welded his feet into stilettos, and he feels like some heavy-handed bastard is trying to awkwardly reshape his feet. They don’t even feel like they’re _his_ shoe size.  
It’s all for nothing, anyway, because Harry still trips over a very-body shaped obstacle, falling right over and sighing despondently.

“Whozzat?” Asks the growth on the floor. Harry wonders, briefly, if there’s a gun in this room, and whether it would serve a purpose better on everyone else, or himself.

“A fucking fairy.” He replies, and that seems to satisfy whatever further questions said obstacle has.

“Whassa fairy doing here?” Someone else asks, and Harry still can’t answer his gun question, because the pendulum tips back and forth with every argument his mind makes.

“Charitable work. That’s what fairies do, you pricks.”

“Fairies don’t swear.” Replies the second voice, far too sensibly.

Perhaps Harry should use the gun on _all_ of them.

“They do when they have hangovers.” He says, viciously, climbing back to his feet and making his way (unsteadily) across the room.

“Then why’s a fairy at Vegas?” Ponders voice number two, and no one answers him because Harry has found the door and is through it like no one has ever been seen going through a door before.

Only in the bathroom, with it’s unnatural white lighting and less-white tiles, does Harry dare to open his eyes, and his valour is rewarded with having to see himself in the mirror.

“Well, if I wasn’t going to puke before, I am now.” He tells the bathroom conversationally, then turning and padding over to the toilet, lifting up the lid, and releasing the contents of his stomach.

“I’m in here, you know. Could’ve turned it down a bit.”

Well, fuck him. Sorry, Mr Voice Three, but at least Harry values where he pukes, and that’s an important personality trait.  
As soon as he’s physically able to reply (for the second time, because the first time proved to be a false hope), he realises, belatedly, that there’s a shower in this room, and it’s actually on.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt your shower time.” He says, by way of a pretty shit apology, and voice three laughs.

“M’not actually showering.”

Curious, despite the fact that Harry’s got no clothes on save the hot pink stilettos his drunk self had the skill to force his feet into (fucking stilettos, man, that’s not even possible), he teeters over to the shower, and opens the door a fraction, peeking his head around.

Zayn’s under the spray of the water, hair plastered to his face. That’s not so bad.

“Are you wearing a little girl’s princess dress up?” He asks in trepidation, and Zayn nods like this is something that happens to him all the time. “It’s pink and purple. With sparkles.”

“You can talk. You have fucking jam on your face.” Zayn points out, and Harry’s cheeks heat up. He tries to cool them down through the power of firm thinking, because what if the excess heat melts the jam right off of his face?

“I know.” He says, morosely. “In the shape of hearts.”

As it turns out, Harry wasn’t so much covered in glitter as it had been actually stuck to him. And Harry’s not one to jump to conclusions, but that was definitely Niall, because Niall is a little shit.

“Harry, mate.” Zayn says. Harry realises, with a kind of detachment, that Zayn’s shaved his legs and is wearing fishnet tights. “You’re naked.”

“I know.” Harry repeats, because obviously people seem to be forgetting that Harry had to have been totally shitfaced last night, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know when he doesn’t have clothes on his body.

“Where did you go, flower?” Calls Louis plaintively from the bedroom, and Harry had been trying really, really hard not to add up all the signs and make up the logical answer.

“Go on, _flower._ ” Zayn says, smirking, and only Zayn would smirk when they’re sitting under a stream of cold water in a six year old’s princess outfit (albeit a tiny smidge sluttier).

“Zayn.” Harry replies, voice grave and head feeling like there’s the Devil’s pitchfork nestled inside and writhing with every pound of his heart. “Did I accidentally fuck my best friend last night?”

“I think so.” Says Zayn, furrowing his brow so his forehead wrinkles. “That might’ve been when me ‘nd Liam were having swimming races in the fountain. I think Niall said we shouldn’t go back to the hotel room for ten minutes, because he’d been and he’d seen you getting done up the butt.”

“Thanks.” Harry responds faintly, shutting the shower door and turning back to the sink. He runs the tap, catching some of the water in his mouth, and does his best to try and stop the drought currently occurring in there.

“Zayn?” He calls out again, and there’s a water-muffled “Yeah?” from inside the shower.

“Are my jeans in there?”

Once Harry’s finished dragging the wet cloth that Zayn had so politely chucked over at him, Harry’s feeling more awake. He hates it, because the more awake he is the more annoyed he is by the fact that the last thing he can remember is leaving the hotel for a “Proper Lads’ Night Out” (Harry always sees it like that when Niall says it so reverently, with the capitals and the quotation marks.

“There you are.” Louis says, catching sight of Harry coming out of the bathroom. “Thought you’d done a runner on me.”

“Why would I do that?” Harry asks, confused, stepping over Niall’s prone body and making his way to the bed so he can have his well-deserved sit down.

“One in three marriages ends in divorce, you know.”

Hungover Louis is as full of shit as sober and drunk Louis.

“I think he’s referring to the piece of plastic on your left hand.” Liam points out carefully from the corner. Harry spares him a cursory glance that turns into a prolonged stare, because Liam’s whole face is covered in a green facemask and he’s drinking whiskey from the bottle.

“I thought you didn’t drink?” He asks. He kinda feels like the show dog that’s always a few loops behind the others.

“I didn’t.” Slurs Liam, waving the bottle in Harry’s direction in a sort of toast. “Well, I didn’t until I tried one. And then it looked fun, so I had more, and I just. Never stopped.”

“Right.” Harry says, and Louis turns Harry’s head forcefully so Harry’s attention is back on him.

“I thought our nuptials were of more importance to you than Liam’s alcohol intake?” He says pitifully, and if Harry’s the dog that’s always behind then Louis’s the dog that just got kicked and doesn’t know why. Bizarrely, and even knowing that he _just had sex with his best friend_ , he feels like he’s the one to blame.

“We didn’t get married.” He says, and Louis shakes his head.

“Look.”

Harry does look. On the ring finger of his left hand is a blue metal band, and decorating the blue metal band is an upright figurine of a dalek.

“And it isn’t plastic, dickhead!” Louis shouts suddenly, sudden enough for Harry to jump and nearly topple off the bed.

“No one cares, anyway.” Mutters Green Liam from the corner, darkly.

Instead of engaging in what is sure to be a morning-after fistfight, Harry grabs at Louis’s left hand, and stares in fascination at the ring on the fourth finger.

“Louis, you have an ood on your finger. A fucking ood. Like, what the fuck. It’s not even a whole ood. It’s an _ood head._ ”

He supposes, as wedding rings go, at least they’d be able to spot them if they were ever lost (not that Harry’s sure he’d really want to find his again).

“We have matching Doctor Who rings.” Louis says excitedly, jamming their hands side by side so it looks like the union of a doomed inter species relationship.

“I can see that, Louis. I can’t see why on Earth we got married, though.”

For the second time that morning, Harry feels guilty for making Louis look as though he just lost everything he ever cared about in one fell swoop.

“Drinking,” Liam pronounces knowledgably from the corner of inebriation, “Can alter your minds in many ways.”

“Thanks, Liam.” Harry says tiredly, because the sunlight is too fucking much (and where the fuck are the curtains), he’s got jam on his face and glitter on his body that he’s too lazy to wash off even if Zayn wasn’t sitting fully dressed in the shower and he maybe got married, or something.

“You had a lovely wedding, though.” Liam continues, like Harry didn’t politely end the conversation and Louis _still_ has a smacked arse expression on. “You both had lovely white dresses and veils. It was like a cross-dressing vision of beauty.”

For the second time this morning, Harry feels like he might throw up.

In lieu of this dramatic response to Liam’s babbling about their wonderful white wedding, he attempts to rescue his foot from one of the stilettos of torture, and that, as he admits to himself, is no mean feat (he’s too hungover for that pun to be intended).

“Gotcha.” He says, eying the stiletto in his hand, and turns to face Louis. “Why was I wearing stilettos?”

“You still are. Wearing one, anyway.” Fucking best friends who you accidentally marry are still arseholes.

“Okay, I get that, but why was I wearing one?” Repeats Harry patiently, bringing his other hand to his throbbing temple and rubbing.

“Because it was our wedding night.” Louis says in confusion, brow furrowed. He’s got pillarbox red lipstick on his lips, which is weird enough, but there also seems to be some on his nose.

“Doesn’t mean I need stilettos.” Harry mumbles, looking away from Louis’s makeup tragedy and back to organizing the freedom of his other foot.

When he’s armed with both stilettos, he chooses to missile them at Niall’s sleeping body, because Niall is the one least likely to throw them back and most likely to laugh and chuck them out the window, or something.

“Whatthefuckwassat?” Asks Niall blearily, as the toe of a shoe bounces right off his spine.

“Harry is throwing his girly shoes at you.” Louis remarks, moodily, and if they weren’t married and Harry could be arrested for domestic abuse, he’d throw the other at Louis’s face.

“He’s just pissed because we got hitched.” Harry says, and Niall grins.

“Was a great wedding. I think. I dunno, I don’t remember most of it. Think I shagged one of the bridesmaids, though. And then I walked in on you two during your honeymoon, and that was something I really wish I’d forgotten, and now I’m glued to the floor.”

“We had bridesmaids?” Harry asks first, because none of them look dressed like bridesmaids.

“Nope.” Liam says, but he’s over halfway through that bottle so it sounds more like ‘Norpgh’.

“Must’ve been someone else’s bridesmaid, then.” Niall replies complacently, and Harry is still fascinated by the fact that there’s a dalek on his wedding ring.

“Why are you glued to the floor?” Asks Louis, and Harry thinks this may be the first thing Louis has said this morning that hasn’t made Harry feel the equivalent of a kitten murderer.

“I stole some glue from- somewhere. At least, I know I stole it, because the cops tried to arrest me, but then I got out, dunno how. So I glued myself to the floor.”

“Why?” Harry asks, because even though he can’t remember any of this he feels like he’s the only one who actually remained, in any way, sane (aside from the whole marrying his best mate thing).

“How the fuck should I know. Seemed good at the time. You’re the one who told me to rub the glue on your naked body and roll you in the glitter, though.”

“I did _not._ ” Harry says, scandalized, at the same time as Louis says “There is no way I fucking allowed that.”

“Uh.” Begins Harry, because his friend turned husband now thinks he holds some sort of strange bodily claim over him, and the only one who holds anything over him here is himself.

“You’re my husband.” Louis says, sounding on the verge of tears and like that sentence excuses all the actions in the world.

“By drunken accident.” Pleads Harry, and he’d be more embarrassed at how desperate he sounds if he wasn’t, actually, entirely desperate.

“You’re a prick.” Louis replies, sticking out his lower lip, and if those really are the glistening tears of heartbreak in his eyes then Harry needs to really remember some of last night, and urgently. While Harry tries to will his memory to overcome alcohol, Liam speaks up again.

“By the way, it wasn’t Harry who said we should put the glitter on him. That was my idea.”

Just about figures, really.

*

“I’m never drinking again.” Announces Louis three hours later. They’ve eschewed the hotel room in favour of the hotel breakfast room, even though it’s nearly two and should probably have stopped serving breakfast by now.

“Drinking alcohol or drinking in general, because one of those is a lot more life threatening than the others.”

“Shut up, Liam, or I’ll get Harry to go put you under the cold shower with Zayn.” Louis replies viciously, pushing his (unnecessary) sunglasses further back onto his nose. He has lost the awful make up though, and if Harry had known where his phone was then he’d have taken a photo of Louis’s horrified expression when he saw himself in the mirror.

“Aren’t you supposed to be drunk?” Harry asks Liam in interest, and Liam nods sombrely.

“I think I am drunk.”

“Drunk people are stupider than that.” He reveals, and Liam shrugs like the usual rules of drunkenness need not apply to him. Obviously Liam’s liver is made of steel. That, or he’s the next step in human evolution.

“What are you having?” Louis asks out of the blue, staring at the laminated menu in his hands as though it’s written in an ancient and forgotten language.

“Nothing.” Harry replies, because the thought of food is _horrific,_ and Liam grabs the sheet and reads it carefully.

“I think I’ll have one of everything.” He says at last, and even Louis thinks that’s fucking weird.

“That’s fucking weird.” Louis tells him, and Harry nods in agreement.

“I’m hungry.” Liam says haughtily, and calls over a waitress, who stares at them with narrowed eyes for five whole seconds before asking if they want to order anything.

“I’ll have an apple.” Louis says, and Harry puts his head in his hands because who comes to Vegas and orders an apple, anyway?

“What about you two?” She asks, looking between him and Liam and Harry is pretty sure that her red dress is adorned with miniature penises. Is that the plural of penis? Maybe it’s peni. Penises, peni, penises, peni.  
Harry is rather upset that he can’t even blame this internal argument on being drunk, because he’s now one hundred percent sober and feeling the after effects.

“I’m not having anything, thanks.” He manages to force out, and the award for the best “You’re all wasting my time” expression goes to this waitress at the breakfast room of a hotel who’s name nobody knows. “Are there penises on your dress?”

“Yes.” The waitress replies shortly, turning to Liam. “Are you ordering anything, or can I get back to watching the other two waitresses make out?”

“There are waitresses making out?” Calls out a ginger from the next table over, leering and sticking out his tongue.

“None of your business!” Louis calls back, flipping him the bird. Ginger looks affronted for all of two seconds, before catching sight of Louis’s ring and laughing hard enough that his face falls in to his bowl of cereal.

“Don’t laugh, dick, that’s my husband you’re-” Harry begins, because he totally meant to say friend and he’s _hungover_ , give him a break, but Louis interrupts him ecstatically, grabbing both of his hands and beaming like someone’s shoved a lamp in his throat.

“You called me your husband.” Louis says, voice all soft and dreamy, and Harry’s too much of a nice guy to burst his bubble dream like that. Even though they were great as friends not one day ago.

“Uh, yeah.” He replies, and Louis bites his lower lip, looking down at the table and smiling. Harry isn’t sure if this is some kind of alcohol induced mating rite, but he doesn’t want any part of it.

“Hate to interrupt this and all,” Liam says, but his voice sounds like he’s trying to land a part in _Most Sarcastic Man- Ever_ so it negates his words. “But I’m trying to order here, and you two are having your big gay moment and the Penis Waitress can’t hear anything I’m saying.”

“I’m not the Penis Waitress.” Penis Waitress says tiredly, like she can’t be bothered trying to argue with them, and Louis looks at Liam like he’d forgotten Liam was there and now he’s remembered, all he wants to do is incinerate Liam on the spot.

“I can have my big gay moment wherever I want, Liam, and you’re not stopping me. Besides, I think my big gay moment happened before this. Probably, you know, when I came out. Or my sixteenth, the one with the pink castle cake. Maybe even last night, when I put my dick in my beautiful husband and we had hot wild animal sex-”

“So not drunk enough for this.” Liam mutters, clasping his hands over his ears. Harry thinks he’d quite like to join him, because even though the last bit actually involves him, it doesn’t feel like it happened to him.

“-so really, this is not very gay for me. The wedding was a bit gay though. Niall wore an inflatable penis on his head.” Louis sounds overwhelming nostalgic for something that happened last night.

“We dressed in drag and came as brides.” Harry says flatly, and Louis nods, the shades bouncing on his nose.

“You looked lovely, dear.” Louis acknowledges, petting his thumbs along the backs of Harry’s hands (which Louis doesn’t seem to want to let go of any time soon, in case Harry and his dalek wedding ring run off into the glittery horizon).

“ _Orders, please!_ ” Shouts the waitress, nearly a scream, and Liam lets out a high pitched squeak, toppling over on his chair so it falls backwards.

“I’m fine.” He calls, and Louis and Ginger across the room both answer at the same time.

“No one cares.”

“Wish you’d hurt yourself.”

Even the waitress looks a little disappointed in their spectacularly lack of humanity, and she’s wearing a dress decorated with miniature, sewn-on penises. Not to mention that Liam’s fall was her fault in the first place.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Harry says kindly, and Liam smiles down on him benevolently from where he’s picking up the chair.

“Thank you, charming, caring Harry. You’re my best friend. I really _love_ you, if you get my meaning.”

Harry’s got to hand it to Liam, he really knows how to piss people off. Quicker than Harry had led be believe that humans could move, one of Louis’s hands reaches out to push over the chair that Liam just sat back down on, sending it crashing to the floor and Liam yelling, and the other tilts Harry’s head so he and Louis are eye to eye, and faces uncomfortably close- even for people who had what purports to be _“hot wild animal sex”_ last night.

“Liam, don’t even think about it, or I’ll strangle your body with your own intestines.” Louis says calmly, and Harry begins to wonder whether he’s married a psycho. He opens his mouth to reassure Louis that Liam was only joking, but Louis beats him to it. “Don’t worry, Harry, I’d never do that to you. As your husband, it’s my duty to take care of you.”

“No one takes care of me.” Harry mumbles, because he’s a fully mature, responsible adult who doesn’t need the shit that’s being handed to him today, and Louis tuts.

“I do. I said so in our wedding speech, didn’t I, Liam?” He says, asking the last bit to a wary looking Liam who’s sat down now for the third time.

“Uh, I think so. Your speech was very long, and drunk.” Liam offers, like Louis’s a tiger that might pounce at any second.

“Did I give a speech?” Questions Harry, partly in interest (this was his wedding, after all), and partly in fear.

“Oh, yeah. Both of the-uh, brides? Grooms? You both did speeches, anyway.”

“And what was mine?” Harry asks, because he is a patient man and God obviously does not love him enough for this to be happening. Maybe being surrounded by idiots is a test, or something. Harry’s probably cocked it up.

Liam clears his throat, looking down into the bottle of whiskey that he had the nerve to bring with him, seeing something that obviously jogs his memory in it’s depth, and begins. “Dear ladies, gentlemen, and Niall’s inflatable penis hat. I thank you all for coming to our impromptu wedding, and finding the right clothes. Hopefully you all enjoy the rest of your night. Sorry you won’t see us after this, but Louis has his hand on my crotch so we really need to leave.”

Harry feels like he’s falling through space and fire and chaos and ice and none of it is as fun as it sounds.

“I said that?”

“Mine was more romantic.” Louis says, affronted. “I talked all about the colour of your eyes in the sunshine and how lovely you were when the leaves were caught in your hair in the autumn and that time I gave you a handjob after a lads night out.”

“I thought we said we weren’t mentioning that ever again.” Harry whispers, and you could fry eggs on his cheeks if his cheeks were saucepans and metaphors suck, anyway.

“There are no secrets in this marriage, Harry.” Louis says stoically, and Liam laughs suddenly.

“What?” Asks Harry, because now all his friends know about the time he and his other friend did some not-so-platonic bonding and he can’t ever look anyone in the eyes ever again, not even Joe the ice-cream man who used to date Louis but was, apparently, as shit at blowjobs as his ice-cream was great.

“You’re a fucking clueless piece of shit.” Liam says, like he’s never heard anything so entertaining in his entire life.

Louis pushes Liam on to the floor for the second time, and even Liam can’t find that fun. Especially when he doesn’t have the cap of the whiskey bottle screwed on and warm brown liquid spills over his t-shirt (which reads, illustriously, **Dinosaurs Were Huge And So Is My Cock**. Harry thinks it’s probably one Louis bought during his rebellious teenage years and Liam has found somewhere).

“You ruined my shirt.” Liam says gloomily, lying on the floor and letting the liquid spread further through the fabric. What the hell, anyway, it’s already ruined.

“You insulted my husband.” Louis replies, like slighting Harry is now a punishable offence (although Louis always reacted like this, anyway, because a joke was never a joke when it came to Harry’s honour).

“I’m fine, Louis, stop _fussing_ , please.” He’s aware he sounds whiny, but he can’t be bothered to stop and he just realised Louis’s wearing a bright pink t-shirt that says **Some People Are Gay and I Love My Sexy Husband** and he really wants to know where the fuck everyone’s getting these shirts. He found his suitcase and threw on a plain white one, because that’s what normal people do.

“Not now, sweetheart.” Murmurs Louis, patting his cheek absently and staring down Liam, who’s picked up the bottle and is squinting at the inside. “Besides, that top is shit. Didn’t think you’d be into the rude designs, Liam.”

If Liam wasn’t so completely trashed, he might’ve noticed that Louis’s voice is full of warnings.

“I like it.” Liam says defensively. Harry wonders whether he should tell Louis that his hand is still on Harry’s face. “It was really cheap too, I have ten now. They’re like a wearable souvenir.”

“Are you ever getting up from there?” Harry asks conversationally, and Liam hums as though the idea hasn’t ever really occurred to him.

“Is anyone going to order or are you going to continue on with your fucking gay romance, because I want to WATCH THE LESBIANS MAKE OUT!” Interrupts the Penis Waitress, voice rising to a scream at the end. It’s loud enough to swivel every head in their direction, enough for what has to be the chef (who also has a chef’s hat patterned with crude vagina diagrams) to come out of the kitchen and two red-cheeked blondes, sorting out their skirts and smoothing down the material, to appear out of one of the doors.

“Don’t bother.” Harry tells them. His voice sounds stressed even to his own ears. “We all know you were getting off in there.”

Even those two, who are now the focus of the breakfast room, cannot be as mortally ashamed as Harry will be feeling for the rest of his entire life.

“Can I make an announcement?” Queries Liam loudly, standing up shakily on his chair and addressing the room at large. The attention of this room seems to be a volleying between their table and the lesbian waitresses.

“Go ahead.” Mutters the grumpy ginger, who downs an entire shot of something luminous yellow that’s hopefully a poison of some kind. He’s ruining Louis’s mood, and only Harry gets to do that (via the method of unintentionally breaking his heart).

“Thanks.” Liam says, wobbling a little and waving the whiskey bottle about nervously. Harry wishes his shirt wasn’t so explicit and possibly offence-causing. “Could I propose a toast? Cause, like, my best mates just got married!”

Louis’s little face lights up like the lights on a Christmas tree. No, like the lights on every Christmas tree in the world have been simultaneously turned on at once and force fed into the human being who _still_ has hand on Harry’s cheek.  
There’s a resounding cheer from every corner of the room, including the chef and even their Penis Waitress, and Harry’s happily surprised that she’s not actually a psychotic maniac.

Liam isn’t even finished. This is obviously what happens when Harry’s apparent horniness stops him giving speeches at his wedding.

“This is a very big day for them. Even though it was yesterday. But, you know, Louis’s been in love with him for a long time. Stupidly long. He hasn’t even had a proper relationship in years. It’s fucking stupid, I told him, because Harry’s as straight as a pole, but I guess that pole is broken.” Liam smiles at them both, and Harry can feel the blood leaving his face. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I’m really happy for you two, because I think you’re great together. When Harry isn’t after girls. Whatever, Louis can keep him in check. Glad you changed his mind, mate. Team Penis!”

The rest of the room takes up the chant, shouting out “Team Penis!” until Harry’s ears feel like they’re bleeding.

God does seem to be looking out for him in some way after all, because after three whole, painful minutes wherein Louis quickly makes sure no part of his body is touching Harry’s in any way and they’re definitely not looking at each other, one of the lesbian waitresses takes up a different shout, with a whole lot more screaming.

Harry has never been so glad that a restaurant is being consumed by flames in his life, ever, even though he could possibly die.

*

“So.” Harry says, back in the hotel room with the silk sheets and Niall glued to the floor and Zayn still in the shower even though they hit their water limit and he’s probably got hypothermia. “Are we going to talk?”

They managed to lose Liam. Harry uses the term ‘lose’ loosely, because he was actually taken from them. Apparently, when you dive into a kitchen to try and stop a fire armed only with a bottle of whiskey, you can make the fire worse and suffer smoke inhalation at the same time. Could’ve been worse, the paramedics told them, because the fire could’ve erupted at burnt him to death. Judging by Louis’s hard stare, that’s not a fate all of them would’ve been devastated by. Harry’s just happy that the shirt got burnt and had to be chucked away.

“You are talking.” Louis replies, looking steadfastly at the floor. He’s changed his declaration of love for his husband shirt into a more modest one that reads **I’m Top Of My Class ‘Cause I Fucked My Teacher Up The Ass.** Harry thinks it probably came from Liam’s glamorous collection.

“Don’t be a bitch.”

Louis sighs, and Harry wonders how everything Harry seems to say offends him so personally.

“What do you want me to say? I’ve been in love with you since we met? Believe me, I wish I hadn’t. Do you know how long that really _is?_ ”

“Nine years.” Harry replies promptly, before his words catch up with him and _nine fucking years._ He always thought Louis just wasn’t a commitment type of guy (more like the other end of the scale). “Why didn’t you just say something?”

Laughing without any drop of humour (the humour sponge has been squeezed dry today), Louis scoops up some of the glitter between his thumb and forefinger before blowing it into the air. Harry wonders if he’s making a wish.

“Why? Maybe because you don’t like guys, Harry. I’m your best friend, that’s enough for me.”

For the first time, Harry looks at Louis objectively, tries to see him as something other than his closest friend. And maybe, just maybe, it’s not the guy thing after all. Perhaps he just never saw the right guy, because the right guy was standing to close.

A flicker of memories plays short and sharp behind his eyes; Louis when they met when they were eleven, introducing himself and slapping Harry around the face because he’s taller than Louis; when his parents shouting got too much and the whole pebbles thrown at the window thing was proved to be bollocks (Harry is a deep sleeper) so Louis slept outside his window all night because he didn’t want to wake him; the infamous handjob incident three years ago and Louis had said how pretty Harry was and Harry had put it down to an unnatural consuming of beer earlier in the night; Louis being creepily obsessive making sure that no one ever said anything bad about Harry and coming down on anyone like a small and ferocious bird of prey; how Louis refused to talk to any of the girls Harry ever brought back to the lads, and how the rest of them would look at Louis as though he might snap in half; lastly, Louis getting married in Vegas and seeming to remember the entire night so obviously hadn’t been halfway as dunk as Harry- maybe not even drunk at all.

“I’m a fucking idiot.” Harry says in wonder, head falling back on the pillow, which first on all, lets off a breathy moan that’s a lot too perverted for this time of the day, and then a small cloud of green feathers shoot out of one end. Harry doesn’t even want to know where this pillow came from.

“No, you’re not. I’m the one who can’t get over a fucking crush.” Replies Louis miserably.

“Maybe not just a crush.” Harry says, and Louis looks at him for the first time since the restaurant, and his glance seems to ask a lot of questions that begin with _what the fuck_ and end with _is this fucking true._

Harry pulls Louis’s hand to him, linking their fingers (he tries desperately not to think about the ood ring, he does, and he is vaguely successful), and pulls Louis so he’s lying pressed on top of him, chest to chest and feet to feet.

“Uh.” Louis says. “There’s icing in your hair.”

Well, Harry knows this, because one of the screaming waitresses, in a fit of fear, dumped the bowl she was holding on to his head and he can’t get in the shower to wash it off because it’s full of Zayn in a princess dress.

“I was trying to be romantic, here.” Harry says, frowning.

“Sorry.” Louis mumbles, leaning closer so there’s a ridiculously small amount of space between them. There’s a ring of green at the centre of Louis’s irises, and Harry likes that they match.

“My husband.” Harry says complacently, and Louis smiles, and it’s brighter, so much brighter, than any of the smiles he’s seen today by half. “We have to renew our vows, though.”

“We do?” Louis asks, pulling back and furrowing his brow.

“I want to be able to remember my wedding.” He says pointedly, and Louis flushes.

“Guys.” Niall says from his faceful of carpet. “I’m still here, if you decide to fuck, so please don’t. And I’m in a pentagram of glitter, if you didn’t notice, so Satan might be summoned by your sexual activities, and I hear he’s a real cockblocker.”

“I think Liam has a shirt with that on.” Harry says thoughtfully.

“So, no fucking?” Asks Louis, biting his lip.

Harry kisses him anyway.


End file.
